by Simon Hall
And the courtroom waited.
Eyes automatically found that one, vacant seat. And the father who sat beside it, bent double now, a polished shoe turning on the carpet tiles.
On the press benches Dan squirmed as a sweat spread across his back. Ahead sat Adam, his dark hair newly cut for this final week of the trial and his flushed neck turning ever redder. Beside him Claire toyed with a pile of folders.
Still, six months on, they hadn’t talked. The occasional walk, yes, the odd drink, yes, always on the neutral territory of moorland or a pub, but never the conversation which threatened. Always he was too tired, or she too preoccupied by a case.
To Adam’s other side Katrina sat back, her arms folded. Her hair was a little longer than six months ago, perhaps with the hint of a shading of colour. On her shoulder lay that legendary symbol.
Dan found his pen sketching an outline of the tattoo. He knew what it was now, he had made the discovery precisely ten days ago. And in what extraordinary circumstances.
The foreman finished buffing his glasses and was replacing them carefully upon his nose. At last he was starting to look up.
And then a noise as shocking as a thunderclap. A hammering at the courtroom doors. A random, relentless beat. Panicked hands with pummeling fists.
And the sound of a cry. The voice of a young woman.
“Let me back in! I have to know!”
The doors shook under the attack. Judge Templar tapped a finger on the gavel, balanced upon the bench.
Another rocking of the doors. “Please! Please!”
Furrows pitted the judge’s brow. “Such an occurrence is most irregular at this point so pivotal in the trial,” Templar announced. “The doors of justice are locked only occasionally, but always for good reason. However, the young lady is understandably distressed and the court will make allowances.”
The usher slid over, unlocked the doors and in tumbled Annette. Her face was blurred with tears and taut with lines of misery. Her father rose and she collapsed into him. There they stood, intertwined, Roger’s arms squeezing the breathless moans from his daughter’s body.
One final anguished wail emerged, the sound of a spirit close to breaking. And as for Roger Newman, his eyes had closed as if no longer able to fight the weight of such an infinite burden.
Rays of sunlight streamed into the court. It was growing ever warmer.
The usher stepped carefully across and handed Newman another plastic cup of water. He took a sip and passed it to Annette.
With trembling, hopeless hands she tried to drink, a cascade of droplets staining dark circles on the carpet tiles.
From aloft on the bench the judge watched, silent and unmoving. But eyes never resting. Over the foreman, the Newmans and the Edwards.
The players on the stage of justice. For this, the final act.
One of the solicitors began to cough, quickly stifling the sound.
Behind the glass of the dock the Edwards sat hand in hand, both intent on the foreman. Brian jiggled a knee. Martha was still, that green gaze set on the man who would decide her fate.
Beside the dock a prison guard shifted her weight. A heavy fob of keys jingled.
And the clock ticked on towards the hour.
***
Amongst the hacks, the consensus was for a not guilty verdict.
Proof beyond reasonable doubt was what the law required in that delightful legal way of leaving a galaxy of scope for expensive dispute. The more analytical of lawyers took the words to mean two thirds convinced, or 67 per cent. The journalists’ view was that the Edwards were certainly guilty, but the evidence against them wasn’t quite strong enough – perhaps adding up to 55 or 60 per cent.
What they all agreed on was that it was a close call. The jury might well see it differently. They often did.
For the first time in his life, Dan had been called to give evidence. He’d tried to convince himself it would be a straightforward experience. He broadcast live to half a million people with a nonchalant regularity. What could possibly be the problem in telling a roomful of maybe a hundred about what he had witnessed?
“Some advice,” Adam said, on the morning before Dan was due to take the stand. “Just answer the questions, but watch out for the defence. He’ll try to discredit you. Make out to the jury you can’t be relied upon. Just stick to what you know and don’t get involved in a row. And no matter how much it might go against your grain, on no account whatsoever try to be smart.”
“I think I can manage that,” Dan smiled.
The look which came back was far from convinced. “Just remember what I said. Whatever you do, don’t try to be clever.”
That morning, Dan found himself unusually preoccupied with his attire. It wasn’t normally a prerogative. In his personal list of priorities, the purposes of clothes were – (1) warmth, (2) modesty, (3) comfort, and (4, by far) fashion.
“What do you think?” he asked Rutherford, as the dog thrust his nose into the rarely explored depths of the back of the wardrobe. “A suit? Or does that look like I’m trying too hard? Just my usual trousers and a jacket? Or does that look like I don’t care enough?”
Rutherford sniffed at the clothes and sneezed. “There’s no need to be so rude,” Dan chided. “What about a tie? Do we go bright, or does that look untrustworthy? Or darker? Or does that make me look like I’m going to a funeral?”
The dog padded off to deal with the more important business of curling up in the sunshine of the bay window. Eventually, Dan chose a light blue shirt, dark blue jacket and a plain, mid-blue tie. At Lizzie’s behest, he’d once suffered one of those colour assessment courses.
A heavily made-up woman had fussed over him, held various swatches of ridiculous shades next to his cheeks, clucked a little and finally pronounced that blue was undoubtedly his hue.
Since then, Dan had bought little else. It was the fashion equivalent of not knowing much, but knowing what you like.
***
The art of throwing skunks is well-practiced in the legal profession, in particular the champions of the lawless. And Piers Wishart QC could have been an Olympian. The purest of waters, the most clear cut of cases, could be muddied by his creative tampering.
Dan stood in the witness box, trying not to look at Adam, and definitely not Claire or Katrina. Instead, he kept his eyes set on Wishart’s well-fed, cigars and port features.
“So, you were with the police for the entirety of the operation to rescue Annette?” the barrister began.
“Yes, sir.”
“The whole of it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You saw absolutely everything that went on?”
“I believe so.”
“Right up to the moment Annette was rescued?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And as the footage in that remarkable video we’ve seen shows, you were actually there.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And in the aftermath? When the police searched the area?”
“Yes, sir.”
Wishart paused, flicked a ginger curl back under his wig and gestured to the dock. “And did you see any sign of my clients?”
“Err… no, sir.”
“None at all?”
“No, sir.”
“Not a trace?”
“No.”
“No hint whatsoever?”
“No, sir. But that doesn’t mean they weren’t there.”
Wishart’s face warmed. Behind him, Dan could see Adam had closed his eyes.
“Really, Mr Groves?” the barrister boomed. “I do apologise, I must have misheard. What is your profession again?”
“I’m a reporter, sir. A journalist.”
“I’m sorry, I thought you must be an experienced detective. An accomplished investigator, no less.”
“No, look, what I was saying—”
“It’s just…” the barrister interrupted smoothly, “No one saw my clients there. As the trial has heard, there was no eviden
ce they were there. No fingerprints, no footprints, no forensics – nothing. But your special insight into the case means you can stand here and tell us they may have been there?”
“Well, they could have… err… fled.”
Wishart turned to the jury and raised an arm.
“Fled?” he mocked. “Fled? Past a hundred police officers? Who were on high alert, busily searching for them? Past police dogs? Past roadblocks? Past a helicopter? I think perhaps the only way they could have fled successfully is if they had one of those devices in which Dr Who travels through space and time – a Tardis, I believe?”
Even some of the jury chuckled. Dan caught a warning glare from Adam and just about succeeded in biting back a retort.
He spent the rest of the day seething, but managed to secure at least some revenge when Wishart left court that evening. He was suffering a nasty cold sore on his chin and Dan made sure Nigel filmed a close up of his face to feature in the day’s report.
***
Even Adam agreed that the case was finely balanced. Fifty-fifty was his estimate of the chances of a conviction.
The fire in the white van had consumed any forensics there and they’d found nothing useful in the cottage. The combination of the voracious blaze and thousands of gallons of water from the firefighters’ hoses had destroyed any evidence. The forensics officers had done their best, but eventually had to concede the scene was hopeless.
The recording of the ransom demand provided no assistance. That there was someone in the background when Annette spoke was clear, but exhaustive analysis came up with the unhelpful conclusion that it could have been anyone.
The kidnappers had been clever. Adam worked up a theory about how they’d got away, but that was all it was, just a suspicion.
With only one road into East Prawle, he thought Martha had been hiding somewhere, watching it. When she saw the police approaching, she’d called her brother. They used untraceable pay-as-you-go mobiles, discarded later when they had escaped.
They had petrol and kindling ready to destroy the van. Brian had probably been living in it to avoid the risk of leaving any traces in the cottage. Together, the Edwards had dumped Annette in the storeroom. Martha left to watch the road and Brian camped in the van, returning occasionally to check on Annette, to give her water and force her to make the ransom call.
Dan had wondered whether they intended to kill Annette? It was a moot point, the subject of some heated rows between the detectives and the Crown Prosecution Service.
Adam thought they probably didn’t mean to kill her, that Martha would have expected Annette to be found before the fire razed the cottage. But even so, he argued strongly that it was tantamount to attempted murder to be so reckless as to start the blaze with her lying tied up in the storeroom.
Adam originally wanted that to be the charge, but the CPS had vetoed the idea. It would be hard enough to secure a conviction for kidnapping on the available evidence.
How had Brian escaped? It wasn’t by car, the only road out of East Prawle was sealed. He was physically very fit and had possibly fifteen minutes head start on the police.
He could, Adam suggested, have simply walked. The area was networked with paths. It was a fine day and he would have blended in with the hundreds of other ramblers enjoying the Devon countryside. The warm weather meant a hat and sunglasses wouldn’t have looked out of place; an excellent disguise.
A rowing boat had been discovered, sunk in a creek near the town of Salcombe, around four miles from East Prawle. Adam suspected Brian may have taken that and rowed to safety. But the boat had long been scuttled by the time it was found and any evidence destroyed. It was another theory that could never be proved.
The case fell back on circumstantial evidence. The Edwards had disappeared for the couple of days of the kidnapping, only resurfacing afterwards and professing astonishment at being arrested. They refused to answer any questions, just as Adam predicted.
Silence had served them well when interrogated about the attack on Albert Fisher. They expected it to do the same now.
The mobile phones registered to the siblings were switched off for the whole time Annette was missing so there were no location traces to help the investigation. The CCTV of Annette being abducted from Catherine Street showed two indistinct figures who an expert testified were similar in build and manner to Martha and Brian Edwards. There were shoe prints from the scene matching their sizes, but the shoes themselves were never recovered.
There was also intelligence from a couple of police sources that the Edwards had been boasting of some spectacular project in the days before the kidnapping. But the informants were criminals, unwilling to give evidence. It was all temptingly suggestive but a very long way from conclusive.
***
The prosecution’s best hope was an alleged cell confession by Brian Edwards. He was being held on remand in Exeter Prison and had shared a cell with a young drug addict and burglar called Ernie Smith. Brian had taken some of Smith’s heroin and afterwards talked about the big story of the year, that young girl being kidnapped and what a fine job it was.
There was a whole morning of legal argument about whether the jury should even hear Smith’s evidence. He was a career criminal, hoping to win some reduction in his sentence by inventing a story, said the defence. No, a man of dubious past, but one who had finally decided to do the right thing, claimed the prosecution.
Finally, Judge Templar ruled that Smith’s testimony would be heard. Adam’s sigh of relief carried across the courtroom. The odds on a conviction had changed in an instant. But it was the falsest of dawns.
Smith was young, nervous and faltering. His hair was cut short to the point of extinction, one ear was perforated with a line of metal hoops and he hadn’t shaved. In fairness, possibly as a gesture to the importance of the moment, he had at least the decency to wear his best track suit.
“You are a thief, aren’t you Mr Smith?” was Wishart’s gentle opening.
“It’s just – well, I didn’t have much in life and—”
“I suspect some members of the jury believe that at some point they didn’t have much in life either. But that didn’t prompt them to begin breaking into people’s homes.”
“I was going through a bad time.”
“As do many people, Mr Smith, but they don’t turn to crime.”
“I want to set the record straight and—”
“And you’re a drug addict.”
“It’s not easy in prison.”
“For whom no one is responsible for you being there but yourself, Mr Smith.”
“Well, yeah, but—”
“And you are a self-confessed liar, are you not?”
“Yeah, but who doesn’t tell the odd lie?”
Whishart let the words wander through the air, before turning to the jury box.
“And that, members of the jury, says it all. Ask yourselves this – can you really put any trust in this man?”
Based upon the look of the two lines of faces in the jury box, Dan began sketching out a script for a not guilty verdict.
Chapter Sixteen
In his years of observing the stately processes of the courts, Dan had come to the conclusion that he was, at very best, disillusioned with the legal system.
When arguing the point he would cite the way the law dealt with those who should be most central to its attentions. But for a victim, the English concept of justice was entirely capable of piling anguish upon suffering upon torment upon ordeal.
It was the night after one rape trial that Dan found himself sitting on the great blue sofa in the flat, sipping whisky and trying to forget what he had witnessed. The woman, whose misery lurked everywhere before his eyes, was in her early 30s, married with a young son, and was known in court as Wendy.
It was an early evening in the wintertime. She had been walking home from a coffee with a friend after work and was set upon. Wendy was pulled from a street near her house, dragged into a lock-up ga
rage and raped.
The defence barrister questioned her at length about the attack, and unsurprisingly she broke down. Without her testimony, as is so often the way, the case collapsed. The alleged attacker, a body builder with a neck like a rhino’s and an attitude to match, swaggered out of court and made for the nearest bar to celebrate. As for Wendy, she had been left sitting in a bare ante room, crying.
Before finally going to bed, Dan looked up victim in the dictionary. He stared at the words, before picking up a pen, crossing them through and scrawling, Person to be treated with contempt, preferably humiliated, and left as a pile of human wreckage.
Other experiences of the courts had softened his definition not at all.
Lizzie had, on one occasion, allowed Dan to take up an invitation to join a public panel to debate the workings of the criminal justice system. It was a mistake never to be repeated.
It might have been the complimentary wine, but his comment – “I don’t have a great problem with householders attacking burglars. If they don’t want to get hurt, the answer is simple – don’t break into people’s homes” – caused a minor controversy and created a flurry of interest in the local press.
Dan was aware of his views and so careful when reporting that most essential moment of a trial, the victim’s evidence. The morning Annette took the stand was, then, one for which he had been preparing himself.
In the weeks that followed the kidnapping, he had got to know a little more of Annette. Dan’s role in the inquiry was largely over, employed as he was as a kind of freelance assistant investigator. Now it was for the real detectives to build a case against the Edwards.
But, at the invitation of Roger Newman, Dan had been asked to meet Annette, to be thanked for his help in saving her. It was an encounter he tried not to think about, given the woman he found.
The meeting was in the MIR, just a few feet from where her picture had stood on one of the felt boards, and it was brief. To say Annette had changed was to compare a shift of the weather from Mediterranean summer to Antarctic winter.